The Da Vinci Deception

by Thomas Swan

Overview

Celebrated thriller writer Thomas Swan introduces Scotland Yard Inspector Jack Oxby in The Da Vinci Deception—an exhilarating thriller set in the art world. Racing from London to New York to Lake Como, Inspector Oxby is on the hunt for an art forger whose daring attempts to counterfeit the great Leonardo da Vinci have the art world astounded. For fans of the UK television series Lovejoy, the art history mysteries of Iain Pears, as well as books like The Thomas Crowne Affair, this is a novel of suspense not to be missed!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781557049773
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/16/2024
Series:	The Inspector Jack Oxby Novels
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	291
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Thomas Swan chose art crime and thievery as the backdrop for his three highly praised thrillers featuring Inspector Jack Oxby: The Da Vinci Deception, The Cézanne Chase, and The Final Faberge. Swan was director of the national board of the Mystery Writers of America and past president of its New York chapter. His novels have all been Book of the Month Club selections and been translated into French, German, Greek, Japanese, Turkish, Russian, Polish, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Editorial Reviews

Published as a paperback original in 1990, this title unfortunately floundered. Swan, however, has since found success with his 1997 novel The C zanne Chase (LJ 3/1/97). Like that title, this offers a mystery involving art fakery, in this case some less-than-genuine early sketches of the Mona Lisa, which must be sniffed out by Scotland Yard's Jack Oxby. With C zanne a hit, this will undoubtedly find a larger audience now.

Library Journal

Following The C‚zanne Chase (1997)—the debut of Inspector John Oxby, of C13, the CID's Art and Antiquities Squad—Newmarket has reprinted Oxby's debut, originally published in 1990 as a mass-market paperback. Following three years of intensive preparation, well-fed art dealer Jonas Kalem is ready to offer to the world the discovery he's long been hinting at: a new page from the sketchbooks of Leonardo da Vinci, with others perhaps to follow. The first drawing, a study for the Mona Lisa accompanied by notes in Leonardo's distinctive left-handed writing, is worth millions, or would be if it hadn't been drawn within the month by gifted forger Curtis Stiehl, whose recent release from prison had closed the circle of Kalem's hand-picked colleagues in the fraud. Retired art historian Giorgio Burri has been waiting to start the ball rolling on authenticating the bogus drawings; unwitting American chemist Eleanor Shepard has been spending a year in Florence looking for likely sources of 500-year-old paper and charcoal; and Kalem's light-fingered assistant Tony Waters stands ready for whatever crasser skullduggery his boss may command, beginning with borrowing an authentic Leonardo drawing from the Windsor Library so that Stiehl can quickly make a closer study of the master's technique. The theft from the library goes off with all the clockwork precision of a good TV movie, but an unexpected glitch—the result of a police officer's incredible indiscretion—brings C13 into the picture for a series of cat-and-mouse chases that range from New York to Lake Como, where a showdown between Oxby's colleague, Supt. Walter Deats, and Kalem's troops provides a rousing, if unsurprising,denouement. Crammed with information on everything from Leonardo's pigments to the Royal Family's art holdings, though competently colorless in its own dishonor-among-thieves caper. (Book-of-the-Month Club featured alternate selection)

Kirkus Reviews

A grand old caper yarn of classic design, filled with tantalizing details of forging techniques and facts about da Vinci’s work…The Da Vinci Deception isn’t just good, it’s terrific.

Book-of-the-Month Club News

Fans of Iain Pears’s art mysteries will enjoy the lavish detail Swan provides on the minutiae of forgery. The captivating premise of The Da Vinci Deception will win over those who like their thrillers well decorated with objects d’art.

Booklist